Ukraine: IMF - Lose The East And Get More Money
One wonders which U.S. politician or functionary visited Ukraine yesterday. After CIA Director Brennan had visited Kiev the coup government of Ukraine launched an "anti-terror" campaign against federalists in the east. That soon pattered out. Then Vice President Biden visited Kiev and the next day another "anti-terror" campaign was launched but stopped after Russia mobilized some troops and threatened to invade. This morning a third "anti-terror" campaign was launched when some Ukrainian security forces encircled and attempted to storm the city of Slovyansk. Who initiated this?
This attempt soon ran into problems. Civilians blocked or held up (vid) troop movements. But supported by helicopters some troops managed to capture a few outlying road barricades. Then at least two of the helicopters were shot down by MANPADs. It was not expected that the armed federalists had such weapons ready but it is also not very astonishing. When the Soviet Union was dissolved Ukraine ended up with a fully equipped force of some 700,000 men. Today, 23 years later, the Ukrainian military force has some 70,000 men. What happened to all the equipment? Most of it was sold off to third countries in shady deals but a lot was just taken away or sold by corrupt officers to anyone who would pay a decent price. I would therefore not be surprised to see more higher level weapons in the hands of the federalists who include some veterans of the Soviet campaign in Afghanistan and other well trained former soldiers and police forces.
The attack on Slovyansk stopped at the city gates with the city itself still in the hands of the federalists. For now the situation there seems to be quiet. Meanwhile there were clashes in Odessa between pro-Kiev and anti-Kiev rioters.
The IMF, which has approved a huge $17 billion loan to Ukraine, gave an ominous warning. Consider yourself to be one of those ruling Ukrainian oligarchs who hope to pocket significant parts of these loans. What would you think after reading this:
Ukraine is at risk of a prolonged recession and may need an extension of its $17bn bailout should tensions with Russia and unrest in the east of the country escalate, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.
...
"A long-lasting disruption of relations with Russia that depresses exports, investment and growth, or a loss of economic control over the east that reduces budget revenue, would require a significant recalibration of the programme and additional financing, including from Ukraine's bilateral partners," it says.
Translation: "Dear oligarchs, screw up the relations with Russia and lose the east and you will get more free money." Such IMF talk is not designed to help with any de-escalation.
I do not expect the coup-government's move on Slovyansk to result in any success. The only gain from it will be more support for the federalists and greater alienation in the east. Anecdotal reports from journalists crossing government checkpoints pointed out that the interior ministry troops used in this government operation were pretty pissed about the orders had received from Kiev. They wonder how fighting against a significant part of the population is supposed to help the country. Then again - they likely did not get the above IMF notice.
Adding: Obama mentor and Russophob Zbigniew Brzezinski seems to push for escalation of the situation as he envisions U.S. weaponized "urban resistance" in Ukraine against an (unlikely) Russian invasion. His rant includes this most hypocritical beauty:
Above all the president must clarify why we cannot tolerate an international system in which countries are invaded by thugs and destabilized from abroad.
Ahem.
Also of note: Both, the Washington Post and the BBC have started to use the term "rebels" to describe the federalists.
Posted by b on May 2, 2014 at 15:12 UTC | Permalink
« previous pagePaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 2m
#Odessa: People raise an #Ukrainian flag painted in red - to symbolize the yesterday's bloody #massacre - in the police office building.
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 8m
#Odessa: Ppl are crowding near the #Police office and waiting. No representative come to talk with them yet. pic.twitter.com/BfdOJ1wspy
Embedded image permalink
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 10m
#Odessa: People are demanding #Yazenyuk to visit the scene of the #massacre and to 'face them'. They're chanting: '#RightSector go away'.
Expand Reply Retweet Favorite More
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 15m
#Odessa: Streets taken by people. They blame the police for keeping 'quiet and standing idly' when radicals were slaughtering the demos.
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 16m
#Odessa: Ppl are heading the Police office building. Chants demanding 'give our children back' are heard. pic.twitter.com/AtX0NhDmnd
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 18m
#Odessa: Under the rain, people are taking the streets. They're chanting: "we'll never forget" & calling the govt murderers.
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 32m
#Slavyansk: Shooting is heard in the outskirts of town, near the railway - colleagues there say. #SelfDefence forces don't comment that.
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 36m
Donetsk: Ppl r watching news gathered in front of the seized bldng. As #Yazenyuk appears in the TV screen,ppl chant: "fascist', "fascist".
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 39m
#Odessa:1st bodies identified.Corpses r mostly from locals.Ppl take the streets to demand the release of arrested survivors of the #massacre
Posted by: brian | May 4 2014 13:02 utc | 302
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 1h
#Moscow: People are taking flowers in front of the #Ukrainian embassy in respect of #Odessa and E. #Ukraine victims.
Posted by: brian | May 4 2014 13:04 utc | 303
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 2h
#Donetsk:Ppl r reciting war poems in front of the seized bldng calling on other people to 'stand up against fascism' pic.twitter.com/DcQSLJMN93
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 2h
#Lugansk: #Ukrainian media reports calm situation in the city.#Checkpoints 've been built in the city's entrance.No public gathering noticed
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 2h
#Donetsk:Speeches r being held in front of the seized building.Elderly ppl & women r showing support & even volunteering to defend the city
Posted by: brian | May 4 2014 13:07 utc | 304
this should be good!
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 3h
#Yazenyuk is on his way to #Odessa. Meanwhile, #Europe calls for an independent investigation following the yesterday's #massacre.
Posted by: brian | May 4 2014 13:12 utc | 305
The Ukrainian military has started an operation against pro-autonomy activists in the city of Mariupol, southeastern Ukraine, as well as the town of Konstantinovka, according to local self-defense activists.
The troops have moved into Mariupol and have surrounded an administrative building held by anti-government protesters. The protesters have set up barricades and are burning tires.
There are a few hundred activists inside the building. They told RT that the army is warning them that if they do not leave the building in the coming minutes, they will be fired at and the building will be seized.
“I am in the center of the city, there are a lot of ambulances outside the local administration building, gunfire is being heard, armored vehicles have entered the city and are moving towards the center,” witness Tatyana told RT by phone. “People are going there as well, to prevent the soldiers from shooting. We are hoping they won’t shoot at civilians, though from what we’ve seen before, we are not sure anymore.”
http://rt.com/news/156644-mariupol-konstantinovka-special-operation/
Posted by: brian | May 4 2014 13:17 utc | 306
PaulaSlier_RT @PaulaSlier_RT 5m
People are demanding to enter police building to see those detained - #Ukraine police representative insists they are not hiding anything
Posted by: brian | May 4 2014 13:31 utc | 307
Posted by: peter radiator | May 4, 2014 2:40:08 AM | 282
Ukrainian oligarchs - Foreign Policy from February 5
They got their stuff in European banks, got London residence, are dependent on Western credit and don't want to be bought out by Russia.
Same time Donezk oligarchs are dependent on export to Russia. Steinmeier has been cultivating them - for a German brokered Ukraine solution.
They sure don't want to be annexed by Russia, their businesses won't survive in the EU either.
The EU is not interested in Ukrainian civil war, Russia is not, most of the population is not, some internal actors are, and some external actors, too.
Posted by: somebody | May 4 2014 13:37 utc | 308
'Stengel claims he knows the difference between news and propaganda because he spent seven years as managing editor of Time. He defines propaganda as “the deliberate dissemination of information that you know to be false or misleading in order to influence an audience” and asserts: “RT is a distortion machine, not a news organization.”' http://consortiumnews.com/2014/05/01/whos-the-propagandist-us-or-rt/....high comedy! his defn of propaganda fits the US medias defn of news
Posted by: brian | May 4 2014 13:39 utc | 309
308) add Kolomoisky, the new governor of Dnipropetrowsk is a Swiss oligarch, really.
And he is into banking. He does not need exports to Russia.
Posted by: somebody | May 4 2014 14:08 utc | 310
Browsing MSM briefly, it seems like the fire in Odessa might have been started by itself!
"The cause isn't yet known..."
"The sequence of events ins't clear.."
Insane.
Posted by: Tea | May 4 2014 14:13 utc | 311
@ Brian #309. I'm seconding suggestion that you use HTML tag's for link, or at least shorten URL so it does not get truncated. Not that difficult. Or at least shorten URL so it does not get truncated, and thus require excessive work to determine what a workable URL actually is. Thus either:
1. Who’s the Propagandist: US or RT?
or http://bit.ly/RhsTHJ from https://bitly.com/
Thanks.
Posted by: erichwwk | May 4 2014 14:14 utc | 312
FBI and CIA in Ukraine German Media Says
This cites Bild.
I'm not familiar with the paper.
Not like it hasn't been known all along.
Posted by: Tea | May 4 2014 14:21 utc | 313
A changing narrative in Ukraine
Ethnic Russians in south-east Ukraine have in fact lived in this region for hundreds of years. And, though they are now called the "Russian minority," they proved to be the majority in the last election. Victor Yanukovych was elected president by their votes.Across the country, these are the people that are robbed at gunpoint, killed, kidnapped, or beaten by what is now the Kiev government. The militant right-wing Pravy Sector is now an official organ of the government and has been sent to quench the uprising in the south-east.
South-east Ukraine is also the industrial and manufacturing region of Ukraine, and the place where most of the jobs are. During the first three weeks after the junta in Kiev took power, it took a deduction of 200 hryvnia from everyone's pay to support the families of Maidan sniper victims. This was done with no one even being asked.
The banks here, most notably Privat Bank which is owned by the oligarch Kolomoyskyi, are limiting and freezing the accounts of people throughout the south-east region. For the last month, persons working in the coal and manufacturing industries have been told that if they joined the protests, or even spoke about them on the job, they would be fired. And, for the last two weeks, 30% of the workers' pay has been deducted to support the new National Guard, which is composed mostly of Pravy Sector fighters who have been threatening the population of the region.
Posted by: somebody | May 4 2014 14:24 utc | 314
Hagel's speech transcript, from Friday, 2 May at Woodrow Wilson International Center Forum on NATO Expansion and European Security.
Hagel: "Consider the alternative: a world without NATO enlargement and the assurances of collective security it provided."
Okay Chuck, good idea. Let's do that.
Posted by: Tea | May 4 2014 14:33 utc | 315
This is the BBC today:
The clashes led to more than 40 deaths. Most of the victims were pro-Russian separatists killed when the building they were barricaded in caught fire. 'Ukraine crisis: Odessa detainees freed as police HQ attacked, BBC News, 4 May 2014
But it's par for the course, the BBC has filtered its 'news' coverage so effectively of events in the Ukraine, that there is not a single trace of anything that would challenge the view that it's all a Russian plot. Goebbels would be proud of the way billions of our taxes are spent on falsifying reality.
Posted by: William Bowles | May 4 2014 15:09 utc | 316
@281, Lusov paints a chilling picture: Europeans subsisting on the scraps tossed them by their Reptilian overlords while lean hungry migrants who don't give a damn for Chartres or Big Ben jostle them in the street.
Posted by: ruralito | May 4 2014 15:13 utc | 318
News: Kiev regime will do the report on Odessa massacres.
What a bad joke!
Posted by: Anonymous | May 4 2014 15:44 utc | 319
People in Ukraine's Odessa died instantly, poisoned by unknown substance
Posted by: Tea | May 4 2014 20:29 utc | 321
Das Bild is a very right-wing pictorial newspaper from the Springer Verlag that Wikipedia compares to Murdoch's The Sun.
Posted by: lysias | May 5 2014 16:57 utc | 322
Here's a link to the article in Das Bild: Agenten von CIA &
FBI beraten Kiew.
Posted by: lysias | May 5 2014 17:02 utc | 323
If they're attacking RT, you know RT is doing something right.
Posted by: lysias | May 5 2014 17:04 utc | 324
The comments to this entry are closed.
Миша ☠_No2卐EU @filokalia 9m
@Steiner1776 Τhe big jewish community of #Odessa is also protesting against the #Kiev nazi murderers
Posted by: brian | May 4 2014 12:59 utc | 301